Len

Len coaches executives and educators. Currently he is coaching school and non-profit executives in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut. He helps people identify what their real goals are, encourages them to attempt to achieve those goals, and stays with them, helping them to solve the problems they have in achieving those goals. Trained by The Coach's Training Institute, Len is an experienced school superintendent accustomed to helping educators of all types.

Len was superintendent of the Erving School Union #28 school district in the western part of Massachusetts for twenty-five years. Union #28 is a small, but complex district composed of five towns, four schools, four school committees, five select boards, and five finance committee.

During his tenure, he and the school district negotiated successfully the introduction of the nation's first special education reform law, the recessions of the mid-1970's and the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's, Massachusetts' 4% tax limit and its Proposition 2 1/2 levy limit, and the education reforms of the mid-1980's and the 1990's. During his tenure, the district became a leader in the use of technology for instruction, in thematic instruction and authentic assessment, in the inclusion of special needs children, and in early care and education. The district was particularly successful in obtaining state grant funds and in maintaining positive labor relations.

After leaving School Union #28 Len was associated with the Northeast Foundation for Children (NEFC), where he was Executive Director . NEFC is a national educational reform organization devoted to The Responsive Classroom approach. During his tenure there, the consulting division of that organization was reorganized and made more profitable and the Greenfield Center School, the organization's laboratory school, was revitalized. Prior to coming to Union #28, Len was Assistant to the Superintendent of the Lewiston-Porter District in Western New York.

He completed an administrative internship in the Chicago Public Schools while attending The University of Children, taught in Carlisle and Newton, Massachusetts, and served as Editor of the Administrator's Notebook. He has completed degrees from Brandeis University, Oberlin College, and the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

What Len is Up to This Summer

Christine

An outstanding teacher, Christine has been successful in urban, suburban, and rural environments. Her career has been evenly divided among time as a teacher, time as a school principal and assistant principal, and time working on state and national policy issues. Her teaching was in suburban Connecticut where she learned, among other things, what is possible in education when resources are abundant.

As a school administrator, she learned how to make successful schools with scarce resources. She was assistant principal in Chicago's Disney Magnet School and principal of the Swift River School in Western Massachusetts. She was able to think about policy issues broadly while working as a Research Analyst at the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts -- Amherst and a Research Associate at the Educational Development Center, and in her work with the joint education committee of the Massachusetts legislature.

During her tenure as a principal in Massachusetts, she obtained several competitive grants. Under her leadership, the Swift River School was awarded grants supporting innovative science curriculum, after school programs, and early care and education. Christine brought her school through the complexities of Massachusetts education reform and managed some difficult and unusual personnel and collective bargaining issues. Her successes in Massachusetts mirrored her success in Chicago where she helped to bring order and stability to a school serving a population that drew on the entire city of Chicago.

In addition to successfully writing and managing grants, Christine has helped school districts assess the effectiveness of grants and she has helped independent groups draft charter school proposals. She received a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Administration, Planning and Social Policy.